


Aries Draco Auriga

by 2Hummingbirds



Category: Medea - Euripides, Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: Astrology, Canon Compliant, Gen, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Infanticide, Self-Harm, Spoilers, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:46:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22961896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2Hummingbirds/pseuds/2Hummingbirds
Summary: Utena takes newfound interest in the discipline of naming the stars.“Surely you must know them all by now, visiting your brother each week, and all.”Proudly, Anthy was able to respond with the truth: “Not a one.”
Relationships: Himemiya Anthy & Tenjou Utena
Kudos: 13





	1. Aries

**Author's Note:**

> This fic follows the final arc of the show from an Anthy pov, as well as the Euripides version of the myth of Medea. The references to self harm, abuse, infanticide, and suicidal ideation are not more prominent than they are in either Utena or Medea canon, but they're still laid out in plain terms.
> 
> Also Utena/Anthy is real but I have chosen to mark this fic as gen because I don't think it contains anything that someone looking for romantic content would go here for. But we'll see. There's a whole chapter left to write.

They were looking at a translation of _Medea_ again. Anthy hardly cared, she’d read it twenty times. Well; fourteen times, for class.

This cycle, she’d told herself, back in spring when it started, was special. Himemiya Anthy had been fourteen for a very long time, but this year, she had actually had her fourteenth birthday. That was the extent of it, though. Anthy had learned that every cycle, every duelist, every person was a little bit different, and so far none of those unique things had been enough to break them free. Therefore: no meaningful coincidence of factors would do it.

“Turn to the first page,” the new foreign literature teacher said. She was young, enthusiastic, and different, but Anthy had seen young and enthusiastic people time and time again, and they either stayed that way for a few repetitions or they stayed longer and got tired. Just another difference this year that would make no difference at all.

=

On the walk back home that day, Utena wanted to talk about constellations. Nanami was there as well, three feet away from them so as to appear like she was doing her own thing, but walking in the same direction and at the same speed.

“Surely you must know them all by now, visiting your brother each week, and all.”

Proudly, Anthy was able to respond with the truth: “Not a one.”

Utena seemed disappointed.

“Well, it’s not like I’m any better. But they’ve seemed interesting to me lately, so I picked up this book from the library on stars and charts and such. Look,” she pointed at the page, “this is Aries, the ram with the Golden Fleece.”

Anthy and Nanami looked over. “Those stars?” said Nanami. “In a straight line like that?”

“Yeah, it’s weird. It’s not curly like the symbol.” Utena shrugged.

She paused, then added, “what’s your zodiac sign, Himemiya?”

At this, Nanami scoffed. “First blood types, now zodiac signs - I won’t be dragged into another fad with you.” She peeled off from the two of them and headed toward the gate, out in the direction of her family’s home. Utena turned her head to follow Nanami’s path.

“What’s her deal? It’s not like your star sign is hereditary,” said Utena, shaking her head. “Ahh. Anyway, when is yours-”

“Pisces, Miss Utena,” Anthy said. And then they arrived at the base of the tower, and there awaited Chuchu, who tumbled off the doorframe in urgent need of rescue before Utena could further inquire about the circumstances of her birth.

=

“Medea is a descendant of the Sun,” their teacher said. “The Sun is personified as an immortal, Helios. This lineage gives Medea power as a sorceress.”

Anthy scritched at her desk, peeling the top layer away. Oh, the desks were particle wood now? How modern. Anthy wondered what personality type the blood of the sun would be.

“And to continue Medea’s backstory, this Jason she is married to was the leader of the Argonauts, who won the Golden Fleece.”

Utena twisted around in her seat as the literature teacher recapped _The Argonautica._ “Hey, Aries,” she whispered. “Like I said earlier this week. Wakaba, isn’t that you?”

Wakaba frowned and hissed back, “I’m a Pisces.”

Utena looked surprised. “So March is Pisces? Hey Himemiya-”

But at that moment, the teacher made the entire class stand up. For the parts of the play that required the chorus of Corinthian women, everyone read in unison.

“Intelligence is a man’s trait,” echoed the class. “Woe for the rare woman afflicted with cunning and pride.”

=

Utena had brought Miki to the greenhouse today. She had been cracking open more books than usual lately, and it seemed he was helping her study. It was a warm place to sit, with the weather growing chilly as they pushed further into the year.

Utena sighed. “It turns out Akio agrees with Nanami that astrology is childish. Well, he said girlish and unscientific. So I’m getting Miki to share his astronomy notes instead.”

At that instant, Anthy switched from not caring for stars at all to caring about astrology, but she said nothing and listened politely.

Miki cleared his throat and began. “Each star is actually large and bright-burning, like our own system’s sun.”

Anthy liked that. Friendly, warm… big, close… and powerful enough to destroy anything that touched it.

She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, feeling the muggy heat filter down through the glass. The most powerful destructive force within lightyears of this location also made the flowers grow.


	2. Draco

“Don’t you find it interesting that Astro-logy is the pseudoscience when it ends in -logy, which is the ending for every other ‘real’ science, but the hard science in this case is astro-nomy?”

Juri turned a page in her book and replied without looking. “It’s because astrology came first and by the time they needed to peel off birth charts and myths into a separate discipline, the name was already taken.”

“Is that it?”

“I’m pretty sure, yeah,” said Juri. “ _-ology_ is ‘to study’ so that’s what serious fields are called. ‘ _-nomy_ ’ means ‘to name.’ They sound like they’d be better flipped, don’t they? Since in astrology people ‘named’ a meaning onto whatever stars they saw.”

Anthy put her teacup down.

“Woooah,” said Utena.

Privately, Anthy thought the names of the studies were fine the way they were. Astronomy was the one assigning a name willy-nilly to the divine objects that roamed the night sky. Maybe Astrology was the more humble field, trying to derive meaning from what was already there instead of forcing the heavens into a clinical box, devoid of names that did not include numbers, divorced from images, detached from feelings. Pseudo-intellectualism opposed to a pseudo-science.

But Anthy knew that she only felt that way because of what her brother had said to Utena a few days ago, and astrology wasn’t real. Maybe both of the fields should be called astronomy. Maybe both of them were only about human beings struggling to make sense of great balls of fire they could not go near.

“-miya. Himemiya? What do you think,” repeated Utena.

“I think they would make a good song, miss Utena.”

“Huh?”  
Anthy closed her eyes. Yes, hear it in her head.

_Astrology. Astronomy. Mythology. Synanthrology..._

=

“You curse up such a storm for such a petty concern, that I have shunned your bed?” said the girl reading for Jason. She was doing an exaggerated deep voice. “Do you realize I have greater things on the mind? That I am securing my name and family’s future by marrying a princess here? To hinder me, you are not only small-minded and jealous; you are actively working against your own interests.”

This time a girl with a headband and ponytail stood up to read. She was being a little overdramatic, to be honest. A real actress could be subtle, in Anthy’s opinion, so much so that the lie was believable. But that was not how theatre worked.

“Coward!” Medea raged. “If I knew a word for such unmanliness, I would use it! All my power - all I did was for you! Your great tasks would be nothing without my poison, my spells, my betrayals!” 

A girl with short braids and a hairbow read next; Jason’s part again. “Woman, I suggest you keep quiet. You have damaged your standing in this country enough; be calm before you jeopardize the standing of our sons as well.”

Anthy had gouged a line into her cheap chipboard desk by this point, using the compass in her pencil case geometry set. The thin spike of it recalled a rapier.

=

“Do you remember doing astronomy last year? Miki must be in an advanced class” Utena said.

Anthy stayed silent. She remembered last year; it was unlikely anyone else did, and for the record they hadn’t been learning astronomy.

“Well anyway, I’ve decided that if the science side is out, I can use my constellation knowledge for literature class. Check this out,” said Utena, drawing some lines and pentacles on a blank page. “This is Draco. There’s a dragon at the end of Medea, too, I heard.”

Anthy peered at the paper. “...Don’t the charts and star maps usually just use dots?”

“Well… yeah,” Utena said, rubbing the back of her head. “I just thought this looked… you know, what’s the harm in a little embellishment, since it’s just for us?”

She looked over for approval, and Anthy met her gaze with a warm smile.

“In that case, Miss Utena, let me share something as well.” She picked up the pencil and drew a few straight lines of her own (the connecting points, just dots).

“Woah,” said Utena. “What’s that one supposed to be?”

“The Roman letter ‘S’”

“It’s not a constellation?”

“No.”

Utena looked at it. “Still looks cool!”

=

“You have taken everything from me!” Medea railed and wailed. “The crimes I committed - that I induced others to commit! My father, my brother, the daughters of Pelias - all, for nothing, for this!”

“How you attack me,” replied Jason. “I will have to sail carefully to navigate this hurricane of abuse! But fear not; I will weather it with skill.”

The teacher cut in here. “You notice how Jason, famous for his sea voyage, has employed the metaphor here of sailing again?”

“Yes, miss,” said the class.

“Then carry on.”

Jason tossed a ponytail over her shoulder and continued reading. “To debunk this vile case against me, first: I owe nothing to you and your witchery. My debt is, in whole, to the power of Aphrodite, who struck you with the desire to aid me.”

“Tenjou, don’t fidget so much.”

“Yes, miss.”

“Shinohara, you take over,” said the teacher.

“Now you needn’t take offense that you and our children are unsatisfactory to me. I was acting strategically. A man who is poor is shunned by all society; my fortune, my strategy, to marry a princess, thus would secure a place in the world for all of my children, and your sons as well. I could even give them siblings, wouldn’t that be nice? Even you, woman though you are, could see how noble I have been, were you not blinded by jealousy.”

Jason sighed dramatically. “Would that children could be obtained without women - how much easier it would all be if you did not exist.”

The teacher spoke up again. “Medea emasculates Jason, but what he does to her - is there a word for it? De-feminize? You don’t hear that often, do you? Perhaps the most fitting term is ‘dehumanize.’”

Anthy wondered where her brother found this woman.

“What do you think, Himemiya?” asked Utena after school that day, as they walked back home. “He sounded like a real jerk to me. But then, you have to remember that Medea at the end of the play killed her kids - and that princess and the king - and that isn’t okay either? I don’t know. And he sounded pretty convincing. I can’t think of how anything he’s saying is technically untrue, like he was forced into the new marriage by society. It’s just… it just feels wrong. But if I can’t explain it, then it can’t be wrong… Well! In any case. He’s a bully to bring it up.”

The sun was setting already, short days heralding the winter months. Its orange light cast shadows obscuring Anthy’s face.

“What do you think, Miss Utena, of the princess who marries Jason knowing he belongs to someone else?”

“...”

Utena crossed her arms behind her head and carried her school bag behind her that way, uncharacteristically quiet all the way home.

=

It was an itch. The most efficient way, really, was to plunge her forearms into a rosebush with no regard for their thorns.

“I dropped my glasses into them.”

Doubt crossed Utena’s face, but she wasn’t used to being lied to yet. Still.

“Do you think it will scar?” Anthy said, teasing with her words if not her tone. “They’ll be ugly. Can you love me when that happens, Miss Utena?”

This was easier for a middle school girl to deal with.

“Of course I would, but also you won’t be ugly. Even if it scars. Something that happened to you doesn’t make you ugly.” Anthy stared at her silently over the tops of her round glasses. “True ugliness isn’t physical, it isn’t something you can see, it’s inside. The only thing that makes someone ugly is their personality!” Utena finished, flush with the confidence of a child accustomed to fending off scores of bullies. _Look, I am helping!_ How heroic. How simple.

Anthy opted not to comment on how Utena responded “I would” to a question that very deliberately contained the word “can.”

“If you can’t see it,” Anthy said, in almost a mumble, “then you cannot say I’m not ugly right now, Miss Utena. My personality, inside.”

Utena sighs at Anthy, because the statement contradicts all the evidence she has been given. But that’s not all the evidence there is.

She rubbed circles with her thumbs to work antibiotic cream into the backs of Anthy’s hands. It was unbearable.

“Maybe I’ll stay home, and rest. Could you take these roses to my brother for me?”

=

“Accursed witch!” Jason spat. “You would murder them too? It was not enough to poison the daughter of Creon and the king - your own children, just to spite me! You have no ounce of humanity left in you, to abandon your motherly duty in this way.” Gone was the smooth talker from a few pages before; his throat was raw from yelling.

“How dare you,” said Medea. “How dare you pretend you cared about them as much as I did! You, their father, abandoned and neglected your sons. You were willing to throw them away; have Creon banish them, leave nothing to their names. Losing them is ten times the pain for me compared to what you feel; but it was worth it, to deprive you of their light.”

Anthy flipped the TV channel away from the play. It turned to the shopping channel where a woman opined the beauty of teardrop-shaped pearl earrings. She turned the dial. Another shopping channel, with a set of sharp knives. She turned the dial. A pair of hands with a red manicure, holding up a rose made of soap shavings and crushing it into shards and flakes.

She turned off the television and made her way to the living room in the dark.

=

“I didn’t want to look at the real ones,” she said into the glossy black mouthpiece of the antique phone. I do not trust myself outdoors right now, she thought.

The light of Draco spun itself slowly across the wall she faced, white lines flat on a sky blue disc. Anthy found herself sad that the stars on the projector slide were not drawn as stars, but as dots.

After putting the phone down, Anthy went to put the groceries away. Her scratched hands had already healed enough for this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to make sure this fic was published on February 29th, and if only 2 of 3 chapters are done... so be it! It absolutely had to be February 29th! It's Himemiya's birth date!
> 
> Whole passages of this fic were written in my notebook from the last leap year, under the working title "Anthy Starfic." I know some of the conversations that go deep into English language etymology would not have happened at Ohtori Academy, but both "astrology/astronomy" and "de-feminize/dehumanize" are based on real conversations. The latter is a direct quote from a high school teacher of mine. I cannot remember which year.


End file.
